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There’s the distinct possibility of 8c change by 2100 under business as usual. 8c means palm trees at the arctic and no clouds ever forming. If you think that’s
by ianai 7y ago
There’s the distinct possibility of 8c change by 2100 under business as usual. 8c means palm trees at the arctic and no clouds ever forming. If you think that’s a tenable position for life then you’re fully on the denier side.
- rayiner 7y agoThat’s not a business as usual scenario: https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger-clouds-tipping-point-and-8c-of-global-warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger... > The Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 scenario (RCP8.5), a very high emissions scenario examined by climate scientists, has the Earth’s atmosphere reaching around 1,100ppm by the year 2100. But this would require the world to massively expand coal use and eschew any climate mitigation over the rest of this century. Also, it’s clearly a “tenable position for life” because temperatures were that high as recently as 55 million years ago, and mammals survived: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150914-when-global-warming-made-our-world-super-hot http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150914-when-global-warming-...
- lern_too_spel 7y agoWhen global temperatures were that high, the change happened gradually over many millions of years, allowing ecosystems to adapt.
- lern_too_spel 7y agoHere's the last 22000 years of climate change in comic form to illustrate the point. https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- staktrace 7y ago"Tenable for life" is not the same as "tenable for human life"
- refurb 7y agoOf all life, humans are probably the most adaptable.
- yread 7y agoWhy do people keep saying this? We're around only for a couple million years if you count australopithecus. And during that time there were possibly several periods with less than 100k individuals. Going from 7B to 100k would be pretty close to extinction. 0.00143% The question is can we keep industrial scale food production going? Can we get people enough clean water?
- refurb 7y agoPeople say that because of technology. Name another species that can create its own energy, create new materials and cure diseases.
- polotics 7y agoWe create our own energy? How? Ever heard of Thermodynamics?
- ianai 7y agoThis is where we’re feeling the real harm of fossil fuels, I think. We quickly moved from traditional energy levels to astronomically more energy just by burning oil and coal. We can lug around freight with relatively small amounts of fuel. We could do even more astronomical feats with nuclear fission, but introduced the technology to ourselves by blowing up two of our cities. So it’s associated with mass death meanwhile the death associated with pollution and fossil fuels are less visible.
- refurb 7y agoAlright, energy sources if you want to be pedantic.
- 7y ago
- makomk 7y agoI don't think even RCP8.5 would be anywhere near enough to hit 8°C warming by 2100 anyway. Pretty sure that's way outside the range of all plausible models.
- gdhbcc 7y agoThere have been several points in time where the earth was on average 8° higher. Furthermore your claim on "clouds will never form" is plainly wrong, and more likely than not, the opposite of what actually happens in a 8° hotter earth. Climate change is happening, no real doubt about that, but the mindless apocalyptic claims that are parroted around need to stop, because not only are they wrong, but they also decrease the credibility of actual legitimate claims.
- dd36 7y agoWhy are they wrong?
- ianai 7y agoThe Uninhabitable Earth By David Wallace-Wells is my source for this. He’s got scientific references for what I wrote.
- makomk 7y agoOh. That explains it. Apparently his writing has been publicly criticized by such well-known climate change deniers as Michael Mann for being doom-mongering that misrepresents the science.
- ianai 7y agoDon’t throw the baby out with the bath water just because you think you’re comfortable with the relative possibilities.
- rayiner 7y agoAt least in part because that’s not what the IPCC is projecting. It’s telling that nobody ever references the work of the IPCC on expected economic impacts of climate change. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap10_FINAL.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap... > For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers (medium evidence, high agreement). Changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation, governance, and many other aspects of socioeconomic development will have an impact on the supply and demand of economic goods and services that is large relative to the impact of climate change.
- ThomPete 7y agoThere is a destinct possibility of an astroid hitting earth wiping out most humans. Yet we still dont monitor 100% and put all our effort into making sure that doesent happen. If you think thats a tenable position you are on the denier side. Seems to be a very counterproductive way of discussing this.